Arts and Crafts: Making Magical Liquid Soaps

While I include the basic instructions for this process in my book The Conjure Cookbook, I figured I would give a more detailed -- and illustrated -- version of the homemade soap-making process.

Now of course, one can often buy ready-made magical washes, but they are sometimes little more than generic perfume with a lot of colorful dyes added and a pretty label asserting that it's now "Fast Luck Soap" -- and the exact same bar can also be bought as "Road Opener" or "Uncrossing." In some cases the, "washes" have no soap at all and are just colored and scented water.

To avoid this, one can make their own wash (particularly if you have access to a good formulary like Conjure Cookbook and thus know your magical recipes.) An obvious way to do this is by adding essential oils to an unscented soap base -- but what can you do if the recipe requires ingredients that don't come in essential or fragrance oil? Many traditional recipes use things like cinquefoil, sugar, bistort and solomon's seal root that aren't exactly fragrant. For these cases, we use the following process:

Step 1: make a nice strong infusion of your herbs. I'd recommend starting with at least 3 cups of water, and simmering it down till you get 1 cup. How much of your herb or spice mixture to use depends a bit on the specific recipe and whether you're going to add any essential oils to the final mix, but just keep in mind you're probably going to get four or more uses from the final mixture and so, try to use enough herbs for four or more occasions.

Step 2: grate up about 1/3 cup of solid castile soap with a cheese grater (or chop it very finely.)

Step 3: to 1 cup of your cooled herbal infusion, add your 1/3 cup grated castile soap. Stir till dissolved.

Step 4: if you are adding any extra essential or fragrance oils to the mixture, now is the time to do so.

Step 5: bottle your mixture in an 8-ounce bottle, and keep it for your use. You may need to shake the mixture before using, as the castile soap can create an interesting pearlescent sediment when left undisturbed. (An old beauty formula called Pearl Water was made in this way.)

The result.

This simple recipe is ultimately a variant on Hungary Water. It is not strictly hoodoo, or magical in any way, but due to the large amount of rosemary oil can be used for uncrossing, for memory or for spells to help women be more dominant in the home. The stuff is called Pearl Water, probably due to the visual effect one gets upon dissolving Castile soap in water. I found the recipe here, but I think it's one of my new favorite soaps.

1 ounce castile soap, shaved

1 cup water

3 tbs + 3 tsp vodka or other spirit

1/2 tsp rosemary essential oil

Boil the water and stir the soap shavings into to, till dissolved. Let cool, then add the alcohol and rosemary oil. Blend well. Bottle and save for your use.

13 Herb Bath for Curse Removal

13 Herb Bath for curse removal can be made from from any 13 uncrossing and purification herbs. For example, if I needed to fix a batch of 13 herb bath right now based on what I've got in the house, I could mix bay leaves, rue, mint, rosemary, wood betony, sage, verbena, angelica root, white rose petals, lemongrass, lemon peel, agrimony and arnica, and it would suffice well. Other herbs like hyssop, pine needles, juniper leaves, boldo, eucalyptus leaves, mullein, basil, lavender, or marshmallow leaves would be good to use too. By no means complete, here is a list of just a few herbs said to remove a curse or jinx that you can use to make your own 13 Herbs bath: Agrimony Alkanet Angelica Arnica Basil Bay leaves Black Pepper Blessed Thistle Boldo Cayenne Pepper Chives Eucalyptus Garlic Hyssop John the Conqueror Juniper Lavender Lemon Lemongrass Lime Marshmallow leaves Mint Mullein Onion Pine Rosemary Rue Sage Sandalwood Verbena White Rose Petals ...

Perfume, Cologne, and Its Use In Hoodoo

The original recipe for cologne was reputedly given to St. Elizabeth of Hungary by an angel -- the concoction was known as "Hungary Water" and was used primarily as a medicine, rather than just a mere fragrance. Charles Godfrey Leland remarked that it therefore was appropriate hoodoo practitioners would use such a substance for feeding their conjure bags and other talismans. The term cologne actually comes from a later preparation, Cologne Water (named for the German city.) The original Cologne Water is a spirit-citrus perfume launched in 1709 by Giovanni Maria Farina (1685–1766), an Italian perfume maker from Santa Maria Maggiore Valle Vigezzo, Italy. In 1708, Farina wrote to his brother Jean Baptiste: "I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms after the rain". He named his fragrance Cologne Water, in honour of his new hometown. The Original Cologne Water composed by Farina was used on...

Paper-in-Shoe Spells

A popular and very traditional hoodoo spell, often used for any situation where you need to control someone with magic , is the namepaper-in-shoe spell. It's very easy: you write the target's name 3, 7, or 9 times on a paper (depending on intent and who's giving instruction) then fold it up, sometimes after dressing it with oils or powders, then put it in your shoe. This "keeps the person underfoot" or "stomps out the trouble" or "puts pressure on them" or any other number of metaphors. I have had this work several times over the years. In one instance, I was working for a very unpleasant boss, on a short-term job. It was the last day, and I only had about 3 hours of work left on the project; and I wanted him to up my pay for the day since it almost wasn't worth the trip across town for the amount he was paying me, for only 3 hours. He was very reluctant. So I wrote his name 3 times on a 5-dollar bill he'd given me, and dusted it...

The Intranquil Spirit

(EDIT: Up to date information about the Intranquil Sprit can be found in my book The Intranquil Spirit , available on Amazon. This post has some incomplete information which is clarified in the book.) The Intranquility spell is, unfortunately, the first resort of many a rejected lover. In some ways it makes sense -- the more unhappy and forlorn one is about a breakup, the better this idea of making the other partner feel just as much so starts to sound. Unfortunately, this spell is often not well suited to a case. The purpose of the standard Intranquility spell is to have the person be tormented by the spirit until they make contact with you, or whomever the spell is being cast for. This means that if a person is already in good contact with their ex OR if they're one of those people who cannot restrain themselves from initiating contact, then this already is probably not the right spell for that case. If you've had an Intranquility spell cast and you make contac...

Mother Bombie's Witch's Bottle for Curse Removal and Spell Reversing

The witch bottle is a very old spell device. Its purpose is to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at its owner. Folk magic contends that the witch bottle protects against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteracts spells cast by witches. Mother Bombie's Book of Witchcraft contains the following recipe for constructing a witch's bottle: To Make the Witch’s Bottle Which shall cure of all sorceries done against ye You must have a bottle which sealeth with a cork or wooden plug, in which you shall place the following: A quart of your own water shall be taken and boiled with a paring from each toenail, and with some of your hair, for fire will burn away all evils, and as the water reduces so shall your trouble. Put thereto sulfur, XII nails made from iron, and VIII pins of brass. Add also a heart that has been shaped and cut from from leather or cloth, which you shall pierce with one more nail or pin, for that is the heart of the evil doer who m...

The Spellcaster's Source Hoodoo and Voodoo Witchcraft Blog of Talia Felix

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